Wasp Versus Big Foot

  Around the Bayou, the bees are busy...so are the wasps.  Yesterday, I watched as a small black wasp carried off a huge cross spider.  The spider was stuffed down a small tunnel in the ground to become food for a future generation of the wasps.  This morning was spent watching another wasp do the same job.  Keep in mind that the wasps doing all this hard work are all females.  The males have nothing to do with rearing the young of most ground bees and wasps.  The female digs the hole, creates the birthing cells and catches all of the prey.  The male flies around doing not much of anything.

  This morning's wasp was a weevil wasp.  This one caught me by surprise.  Mark and I were rigging the sprinkler in the garden when I noticed a wasp flying erratically around me.  Hmmm?  "Go away, wasp.  I am not hurting you."  The wasp did not listen.  When I finally identified the wasp and saw that she was carrying prey, I knew immediately what was the problem.  I, obviously, was standing on her tunnel!  Sure enough, as soon as I took a step backward, she honed in on a certain spot on the ground.  She dropped her prey of a stinkbug and started digging out the dirt that I had accidentally pushed over the opening.  After a few seconds, she had the hole cleared and was hauling the paralyzed stinkbug down into the hole.  Her larvae would dine on the bug.  I watched as she backed out of the hole and flew off to find another insect.  On, happy day!  She headed right back to the tomato plants!  The stinkbugs are such a nuisance that I was singing praises for the weevil wasp!

  Sometimes it pays not to kill every bee or wasp you see.  Most solitary ground wasps are not aggressive.  They catch tons of garden-destroying bugs so do us huge favors.  This one is welcome to make as many holes as she wants and I promise that I will try to not to step on them, if I see them!  Carry on, Little Mama!  Carry on!  And just so you will know, I am aware that I probably spend far to much time watching the critters around the Bayou.